


A slow poison

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7181534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Organa reaches the age of twenty-three without ever falling in love. </p><p>And <em>yet-</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A slow poison

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TobermorianSass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/gifts).



> For the lovely Jo - happy birthday, my love!

**i.**

Poisons number in their millions, across the whole of the galaxy.

There is only one to which no species is immune.

**ii.**

Ben Organa reaches the age of twenty-three without ever falling in love. 

He loves his parents, as best he can, without ever feeling as if he knows them, and he loves Luke, as best he can, without ever feeling as if it's possible  _to_ know Luke.

Ben loves his family, and he loves the Force, and he loves those days when it doesn't feel as if his soul is being torn in two.

(Or in three - Skywalker, Snoke,  _Solo,_ names he's never borne but legacies that are his to claim, or be claimed by. He doesn't know which would be worse.)

**iii.**

Darth Vader is a spectre.

Darth Vader is a curse.

For Ben Organa, Darth Vader feels almost like a redemption.

He falls, and Snoke is there to catch him. 

**iv.**

Luke is missing, ran away in the wake of Ben's inglorious descent, but sometimes, Kylo thinks that he can hear echoes of grief from unknown distant haven. 

He dismisses them - Kylo Ren does not share a training bond with Luke Skywalker. 

Ben Organa might have, but Ben Organa was a fool who tried to live up to every side of his family but the most obvious.

 _Darth Kylo._ If only. Perhaps someday. He must complete his training first.

**v.**

Ben Organa loved the Force.

Kylo Ren  _needs_ the Force.

Love has no place in the First Order. Necessity, on the other hand, is allowed, and so Kylo insists that he needs the Force, but neglects to mention how much he  _wants_ it.

The power of the Dark Side is like nothing he ever dared to dream, when Ben Organa trained under Luke Skywalker, and only serves to assure him all the more that he is right to follow in his grandfather's footsteps.

**vi.**

He will go beyond his grandfather, though.

His mother is right in one thing - only one. The galaxy needs unity, and regulation. This, Kylo accepts as truth. There are so many disparate species in the galaxy that it is impossible to control them all with no set order.

Democracy breeds disunity and disorganisation, though, where there ought to be  _order._

**vii.**

Ben Organa knew the strength in disunity. Disunity bred diversity, and there was a strength of its own in the odd many-directional pull of the Organa-Solo-Skywalker clan.

Kylo Ren is disgusted by the inability of those left behind to form a coherent identity, abhors their cleaving to their individuality at the expense of power.

His mask is only a little different to those of the other Knights of Ren, tailored to his needs.

Necessity, after all,  _is_ allowed.

**viii.**

The General understands necessity, understands unity, understands  _strength._  

The General is not uniform, his boots longer than regulation and his coat too finely cut to be standard issue. His hair is too bright, his eyes too sharp, his briefly eloquent asides too reptilian cool to be allowable within earshot of any superiors.

And  _yet._

Kylo Ren endures the General's mockery and superiority because here, where he was told there was only evil by all but the voice in the back of his head, is a kindred spirit.

Ben Organa had never fallen in love. It may yet be that Kylo Ren does.

**ix.**

But love it not necessary, and so he does not categorise it as such.

**x.**

It is the slowest poison in the whole of the galaxy.

Kylo Ren searches for an antidote, in rage and in bitterness and in seclusion. He exhausts his body and his mind in the pursuit of his grandfather's felled greatness, seeks out every lesson the Supreme Leader has to offer, fights any and all Resistance soldiers who cross his path right to the very death.

And  _yet-_


End file.
